Kidney transplant recipient in ICE custody may be released soon
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A kidney transplant recipient from Minnesota now in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Texas is finally set to return to home. Javier Abreu-Vasquez, 38, was arrested without his life-saving medications, which he needs to prevent his body from rejecting the donated kidney.
His attorney told MPR News Monday though that even after the man’s legal team and doctors at Mayo Clinic contacted the detention center in El Paso, Texas, multiple times to explain the importance of the medication schedule, federal authorities continued to give Abreu-Vasquez incorrect dosages at incorrect times.
“I think he maybe received a 90 percent-version of it one day,” said David Wilson, managing attorney at Wilson Law Group. “The rest of the time, it was all over the place. And so there would be days where [he] would only get one [pill] out of five, or the timing was off. There was no rhythm to what was happening.”
Abreu-Vasquez was arrested by immigration agents in Rochester on Feb. 5 while he was delivering groceries as part of a local mutual aid group through his church. He was taken without his medications to the Whipple Federal Building near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. After his medications were dropped off, federal officials told his legal team that they needed a doctor’s note in order to give Abreu-Vasquez access to his medications.
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His doctors at Mayo Clinic rushed to provide that letter to DHS Feb. 6 before Abreu-Vasquez was flown to a federal detention center in Texas that afternoon.
Since Abreu-Vasquez was detained almost two weeks ago, MPR News has been given conflicting information about whether Abreu-Vasquez was getting the daily anti-rejection pills he needs. The Department of Homeland Security told MPR News that ICE is aware of the man’s recent kidney transplant, that the family gave authorities the medications and that ICE was working to ensure he gets them.
But his wife told MPR News that her husband wasn’t being given the correct doses at the correct time.
On Feb. 9, a Mayo Clinic physician wrote another letter to ICE on behalf of its patient. MPR News obtained the letter from Wilson and agreed to not disclose its author.
“Mr. Abreu received a kidney transplant in 2023 and, as a transplant recipient, requires strict adherence to a complex immunosuppressive medication regimen to maintain the health of the donated kidney. Interruptions or delays in these medications place him at significant risk for acute rejection, which can rapidly progress to organ failure, necessitating dialysis and potentially resulting in life-threatening complications,” the letter stated.
The letter from the medical team at Mayo went on to request a physician-to-physician consultation and it urges federal authorities to respond with availability and to give “prompt attention to this urgent medical matter.”
Wilson told MPR News Monday that DHS did not respond to this email or other emails with follow up from Abreu-Vasquez’s medical team beyond confirming receipt.
Fortunately, it appears that Abreu-Vasquez may be able to return home to Minnesota soon and will be able to see his doctors in person.
Abreu-Vasquez is from the Dominican Republic and entered the United States legally on a visa, according to Wilson, and had been working through the process to remain in the country legally when that visa expired.
At a hearing Feb. 13, an immigration judge set Abreu’s bond at $12,000. Rochester Area Foundation, the fiscal agent for Southeastern Minnesota Interfaith Immigrant Legal Defense (SMILD), paid for the bond and the cost of the bond attorney, according to SMILD board chair Phil Wheeler. Wheeler said he's been tracking the issue since the day of Abreu-Vasquez's arrest.
Wilson said Abreu-Vasquez is scheduled to be released and flown home as early as Tuesday, but timing is still unclear. As of Tuesday morning, Rosario de Abreu said she still didn’t know when her husband would arrive back in Minnesota.
Once Abreu-Vasquez is back in Minnesota, Wilson said they can begin to figure out together how to complete the process for him to become a legal U.S. resident and prevent deportation. Wilson says Mayo Clinic will be expecting a very prompt follow up with its patient to stabilize his condition.
Wilson said Abreu-Vasquez’s experience in detention without his medications is anything but unique.
“This is an endemic problem with that location,” Wilson told MPR News Monday. “Medical care simply comes in fits. It doesn't happen daily. It doesn't happen on the hour, as it should. And so that puts such a huge amount of distress on the family on the outside – hearing their loved one on the inside (is) sick and miserable.”
Wilson said he understands that detention centers aren’t hospitals, but he said the federal government has an ethical, moral, and legal obligation to ensure detainees don’t get sicker during their stay.
“Javier’s experience is essentially reflective of the inability of an organization to manage medical care when it's moving so fast,” Wilson said. “It's not taking time to really understand anything about the people they're detaining. They're just a number, and their medical needs are kind of irrelevant until they don't have a choice to deal with it because the person is now on the floor and may need to go to the hospital. That's when they seem to start paying attention.”
Correction (Feb. 18, 2026): A previous version of this story misstated which group paid Abreu-Vasquez's bond. It has been updated.
Correction (Feb. 19, 2026): A previous version of this story misspelled Javier Abreu-Vasquez's name. It has been corrected.
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